The Regional District's Westside landfill is scheduled to close later this year. It will be replaced by a solid waste transfer facility for residential solid waste.

The cost of establishing the transfer station has been pegged at approximately $500,000 with another $930,000 in annual operating expenses. In order to pay for the facility, residents of West Kelowna will be hit with a $21.92 residential parcel tax. Residents in Peachland, the regional district and Westbank First Nation also face the same tax.

Ophus... says Peachland and WFN residents have been able to use the Westside landfill for free over the past 20 years as a regional landfill and now that the facility is closing, Ophus doesn't understand why Kelowna is not extending that same courtesy for the Glenmore landfill now that it is the regional facility.

While council voted to add the residential tax, it also will work with the regional district to have the transfer station brought under the jurisdiction of the municipality.

Council also will look at actively searching for another permanent home for a transfer station in a more suitable location.

So Ophus brings up the totally valid point that we should be able to use the RD facility on Glenmore... rather than having to "build" our own... and then we see council clamoring to bring the bloody facility under DWK jurisdiction rather than leaving the "garbage" with the Regional District where it belongs??????

So here we go... DWK administration running around looking to build an empire on top of a garbage dump!

"Conservatives have whipped themselves into spasms of outrage and despair that block all strategic thinking" - David Frum

Property owners living on the west side of Okanagan Lake face the prospect of a new tax once the current Westside landfill closes.

The Westside landfill is scheduled to close later this year. It will be replaced by a solid waste transfer facility for residential solid waste.

The cost of establishing the transfer station has been pegged at approximately $500,000 with another $930,000 in annual operating expenses.

In order to pay for the facility, residents of West Kelowna will be hit with a $21.92 residential parcel tax.

Residents in Peachland, the regional district and Westbank First Nation also face the same tax.

In addition, a tipping fee of $75 per tonne will be levied on materials taken to the transfer station.

"I don't want another tax. We need to find a better solution," says Councillor Rosalind Neis, the only councillor to vote against the proposal.

"I have a problem with the parcel tax. I think we need to get rid of the parcel tax and make it user pay."

Neis says she believes people would support a user pay system.

West Kelowna Chief Financial Officer Jim Zaffino says the parcel tax is necessary to ensure enough money is raised to pay for the transfer station.

"There is a risk of not receiving enough money," says Zaffino.

"This way, the risk to the taxpayer is reduced dramatically. The higher the tipping fee, the higher the risk of garbage in the streets."

Council was presented a number of payment options, including higher parcel taxes and lower tipping fees as well as an option which would have charged residents living outside West Kelowna nearly $160 a tonne to dump waste compared the $55 or $75 per tonne for residents.

At the urging of Councillor Duane Ophus, it was also decided the parcel tax would only be a temporary measure.

"This can't be permanent. It is wrong to charge a $21 parcel tax in perpetuity," says Ophus.

He says Peachland and WFN residents have been able to use the Westside landfill for free over the past 20 years as a regional landfill and now that the facility is closing, Ophus doesn't understand why Kelowna is not extending that same courtesy for the Glenmore landfill now that it is the regional facility.

While council voted to add the residential tax, it also will work with the regional district to have the transfer station brought under the jurisdiction of the municipality.

Council also will look at actively searching for another permanent home for a transfer station in a more suitable location.

An exact date for closure of the Westside landfill on Asquith Road has not been announced.

"Conservatives have whipped themselves into spasms of outrage and despair that block all strategic thinking" - David Frum